ophisms, having unquestionably made a vast stride towards
real civilization, and moral truths, in a thousand important interests,
since that time. Nevertheless, the education was received, together with
a good many tastes, and sentiments, and opinions, which it may well be
questioned, whether they contributed most to the happiness or
unhappiness of the pupil, in her future life. Frank Dutton, then a
handsome, though far from polished young sea-lieutenant, interfered with
the arrangement, by making Martha Ray his wife, when she was
two-and-twenty. This match was suitable, in all respects, with the
important exception of the educations and characters of the parties.
Still, as a woman may well be more refined, and in some things, even
more intelligent than her husband; and as sailors, in the commencement
of the eighteenth century, formed a class of society much more distinct
than they do to-day, there would have been nothing absolutely
incompatible with the future well-being of the young couple, had each
pursued his, or her own career, in a manner suitable to their respective
duties. Young Dutton took away his bride, with the two thousand pounds
she had received from her father, and for a long time he was seen no
more in his native county. After an absence of some twenty years,
however, he returned, broken in constitution, and degraded in rank. Mrs.
Dutton brought with her one child, the beautiful girl introduced to the
reader, and to whom she was studiously imparting all she had herself
acquired in the adventitious manner mentioned. Such were the means, by
which Mildred, like her mother, had been educated above her condition in
life; and it had been remarked that, though Mrs. Dutton had probably no
cause to felicitate herself on the possession of manners and sentiments
that met with so little sympathy, or appreciation, in her actual
situation, she assiduously cultivated the same manners and opinions in
her daughter; frequently manifesting a sort of sickly fastidiousness on
the subject of Mildred's deportment and tastes. It is probable the girl
owed her improvement in both, however, more to the circumstance of her
being left so much alone with her mother, than to any positive lessons
she received; the influence of example, for years, producing its usual
effects.

No one in Wychecombe positively knew the history of Dutton's
professional degradation. He had never risen higher than to be a
lieutenant; and from this station he